


Piety

by Eloisa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire
Genre: Canon death spoilers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-07 00:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloisa/pseuds/Eloisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four snakes utilise their various coping strategies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Piety

“Our sister is pious,” Obara explains as she stands tall as her spear in the middle of their solar.  Her dark hair ripples in the firelight and odd cynical laughter lurks in her voice.  Nym nods and smiles, forever the exquisite, as she takes her seat at the _cyvasse_ table by the window.  Sarella, sitting cross-legged on the floor by the hearth, simply pays a touch more attention to the bow lying across her knees.

 Tyene is in the sept.

All four of them have their rituals, after a killing.  Obara downs harsh Dornish red and exchanges coarse jests with her friends and reminds herself of her prowess in battle.  Nym teases Jennelyn for her poor grasp of _cyvasse_ strategy and congratulates herself on transferring her gameplay tactics to combat like just another knife.  Sarella sits alone and oils her bowstring, speaking to no one.  She tells herself that the fight was necessary, that she had no choice but to kill: her heart is sore, for she, more so than her elder sisters, is truly a good person.

 And Tyene prays.

 Candles sit on the Stranger’s basalt altar, one for each of the dead.  Tyene kneels on the stone floor before the glimmering lights amid folds of her cream silk gown.  No cushion pillows her knees: all life is pain.

First she sings a simple antiphon, rising-falling by turns, calling upon the Crone to illuminate the path between the worlds of life and death.  She speaks the second prayer, the Smith’s blessing for when the work of life is done and eternal rest begins, and thirdly she begs the Mother in a voice low and passion-drenched to have mercy upon those who do wrong in the Seven’s eyes.  The Warrior’s song comes fourth, a plea for intercession for the dead who have themselves killed.  The fifth is the open plain-chant on a single note that exhorts the Father to send the dead wisdom they did not possess in life.  Sixthly, she sings the Maiden’s high hymn of hope that one day hell and heaven will be re-joined and those souls condemned forever will rise to the Seven’s side.  And seventh and last she whispers to the Stranger, “ _Valar morghulis_.”

 When she is done her knees are all but bleeding, but she rises and takes another candle.  She does not pray for herself anymore; she does not know how, for she is neither maiden nor mother and is aware that she lacks the wisdom of the Crone.  Instead she sets the fine orange beeswax on the Father’s altar, and kneels again.

This time she has no liturgy save her own, no formal phrases to carry her heart to the Seven.  She stares into the candle flame and sees it as a spear-head piercing the darkness in the sept as easily it might the sun.

_I grieve for you.  I miss you.  I want you.  I need your wisdom.  I love you.  I love you.  I love you._

And somewhere past the candle, she fancies that Oberyn Nymeros Martell smiles at her, though whether from above or below she cannot say.


End file.
